“Lawmaker Who Sponsored Amnesty Bill For Looters Should Be Suspended” – Prof. Sagay

Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC), Prof. Itse Sagay, has described the bill seeking to grant amnesty to looters in the House of Representatives as disgraceful.

In a statement on Wednesday, Sagay said the sponsor of the bill, Mr. Linus Okorie should be punished.

He said: “Now what shall we do with Linus Okorie? I propose that the House of Representatives should regard Linus’s bill to be so impertinent and scandalous as to earn him a suspension from the House, for the rest of the 8th session, i.e., until July 2019. That should serve notice that Nigeria will no longer tolerate such brazen impunity and corruption or its promotion thereof.”
Sagay insisted that Okorie was promoting corruption through the bill.

“That a Nigerian legislator (a lawmaker) can have the effrontery to promote a bill which if enacted into law, will enable looters of our treasury and national patrimony to keep the loot, if only they can acknowledge it as looted, provided they undertake to spend it in Nigeria, is breathtaking.

“In summary, what Mr. Okorie is encouraging is free plundering of state funds without consequences. Simply put, it is the legitimating of treasury plundering. It is clear that if such a bill becomes law, the anti-corruption war is doomed.
“How do we punish this man for his total lack of morality, and his heedless, headlong promotion of looting without adverse consequences?

I think people who come up with such shocking assaults on our common morality and sense of decency deserve a sharp rebuke coupled with sanctions,” he added.